In case you’re questioning what director Martin Scorsese thought of the complete Barbenheimer phenomenon that had audiences flocking to theaters to look at Barbie and Oppenheimer, it seems that he was a fan of it! He mentioned the complete factor was “something special” and “offers hope for cinema.” During an interview with The Hindustan Times, the filmmaker mentioned:
“I do think that the combination of Oppenheimer and Barbie was something special. It seemed to be, I hate that word, but the perfect storm. It came about at the right time. And the most important thing is that people went to watch these in a theater. And I think that’s wonderful.
“The approach it match completely – a movie with such leisure worth, purely with the vivid colours – and a movie with such severity and energy, and just about about the hazard of the finish to our civilization – you could not have extra reverse movies to work collectively. It does provide some hope for a totally different cinema to emerge, totally different from what’s been taking place in the final 20 years, apart from the nice work being achieved in impartial cinema.”
I remember back in the day when lots of exciting and great films of different genres were released on the same weekend in theaters all the time! This one just had a fun catchy name that stuck and people just ran with it. Both of the movies ended up having an incredibly successful box office run with Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie making $1.47 billion worldwide. Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer ended up with a $939 million global haul.
I don’t know if we’ll ever see another Barbenheimer as this is the kind of thing that comes naturally and can’t be forced. It was lightning in a bottle. But, it does show that multiple big movies can be released at the same time and be successful at the box office! More of that, please.
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